The Hastings International Chess Congress hasn’t skipped a year since the second world war, so I was delighted to learn that the tradition would be honoured by a strong online event which took place earlier this month, featuring a dozen top British players. For the second year running, the event was sponsored by Caplin Systems, makers of financial trading technology. (The Caplin British Online Championships were held last month and won by Michael Adams. Matthew Wadsworth and Matthew Turner secured qualifying spots for Hastings.)
Reading that this year’s event would be a centenary caused me some puzzlement, because I was certain that the Hastings centenary took place in 1995 — I was there. My event, the Hastings Challengers, was played on Hastings pier. In fact, the 1895 event (won by Pillsbury, ahead of Chigorin, Lasker, Tarrasch and Steinitz) was held in summer, and was essentially a one-off, unlike the long series of post-Christmas events which began with the 1920/21 edition, won by England’s Frederick Yates.
A century later, it was David Howell who left us all in the dust, taking first place with an emphatic 9/11 score.
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